Handmade with Love

Hi all, I hope that I find you well! I haven't blogged for a long while and wondered if I would remember how, but it doesn't seem that blogger has changed too much since last year!

This post is prompted by some of my lovely friends who said that they have been checking my blog and nothing has changed for ages!

We are so lucky to have the sea front at the end of our road, the beautiful sunsets always make an amazing photo opportunity. I couldn't resist taking this photo of my husband showing my youngest son how to skip pebbles across the water.

Another page prompted by a day at the beach is of my eldest son....

Like many teenagers he hates having his photo taken, so for now I have to take a quick shot of him when he is not looking!

Our little fella loves all things sporty, he plays for the school for most events and has just joined a local football team as that is his absolute favourite sport of all!

This page was about his love of sport and I decided to use a Rosette as the main theme of the page. I printed the background paper from a digital set of papers called Track Team from 2 Peas in a Bucket and used Microsoft Publisher to print a little bit of journalling.

The ribbons had the names of all the current sports he enjoys, there are quite a few!

Hi all! I haven't blogged in ages but I have been scrapbooking a little and been on the Sugar and Spice Retreat which was great! I have also had a bit of a remodel of my craft room and will post photo's later.

Time seems to be flying past so quickly and as my eldest doesn't like his old mum taking his photo (unless its for his facebook page) I thought I would make use of one we took on holiday last year and a cute little baby photo!

All shapes were cut out on my Silhouette which I have not used nearly enough yet, there is so much it can do!

I added some thickers for the numbers and title and buttons as embellishments and a bubble stamp Kaiser Craft.

I made a tag which I have slipped in behind his photograph but won't bore you with the mushy stuff!

I look forward to have a browse round your blogs, it been a long time!

I haven't updated my blog for such a long time but this weekend I went to the Scrapagogo Retreat with my friend Linzi and have come back all enthusiastic and ready to Scrapbook again!

The grounds of the hotel were gorgeous but I couldn't help but it was odd seeing spring daffodils covered in snow!

I will be updating my blog with all my makes from the weekend. This was a fantastic mini book class called Ties That Bind by Pam Thorburn. We used some kebab skewers and some brown envelopes and turned them into something so pretty!

The envelopes were folded and cut at regular intervals and the kebab sticks were then woven through, doesn't the spine look so pretty!

I used mine to document our summer holiday in Italy last year.

As usual the kits comes with papers and embellishments and you just add your photos.

The envelope at the back is left unsealed for any loose pieces of memorabilia.

The front and back were covered with beautiful papers from MME Bluebell Range and Heidi Swapp.

It was a wonderful mini book which looks so beautiful and it was so much fun to relax and chat and scrapbook with such a great bunch of ladies!

My son has finished school for christmas so last week, it was time to make the christmas cards for his friends. I didn't have loads of time but saw this on Pinterest and made my own version in Publisher. Here is how they turned out...

I made some baubles on the computer as I didn't have enough buttons and pearls to make all of the baubles on all of the cards. I imported the bows as an image and added the sentiment.

All that was needed was some glamour dust and some embellishments!

I rounded the corners with my corner chomper.

My little fella gave them out with a father christmas chocolate telling everyone his mum had made his cards bless him:-)

I have made a rather special purchase to help me make my main christmas cards, more on that in my next post!

Hope your christmas plans are going well. I can't wait to spend some time with my little fella, the excitement for christmas is growing in this house by the day!

I am really enjoying my Friday scrapbooking mornings at Autumn Cottage, I love catching up with my friend Linzi and having a chat with the other ladies there. This time I didn't have time to prepare anything so I grabbed some Basic Grey papers from the Wisteria kit and a photo and hoped for the best!

I picked a background paper in a pale yellow and mounted my photo onto some grey and pale blue plain card.

The flowers were on another sheet from the same range of papers and I cut these out, mounted some petals with 3d dots and used glossy accents to make them stand out. Perfect pearls were used on the inside of the stamen. I inked the edges of the papers with purple to match the flower.

I have created a tag and tucked this under the photo so that the soppy stuff can be hidden underneath!

It's not my usual choice of colours or style but I am pleased with the result and for the opportunity to use some papers with flowers, I don't get to use that too much with two boys!